Idol (Yoasobi song)

• 1. Introduction

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  "Idol," released on the 12th of April 2023, by Japanese duo Yoasobi, began as a Vocaloid demo that Ayase had written and shelved. The original, titled "Kyūkyoku no Ōgi," imagined an unbeatable girl inspired by Street Fighter character Chun-Li. When the anime series Oshi no Ko offered the duo its opening theme slot, Ayase wove pieces of that discarded track into something new.

  What emerged is three minutes and thirty-three seconds long and draws from multiple genres at once. Its lyrics carry three separate perspectives on a single fictional character, each one revealing a different face of the idol industry. What sounds did Ayase build the song from? What do those perspectives actually say? And how did a Japanese-language anime opening wind up topping charts that no Japanese-language song had reached before?

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• 2. Akihabara to Atlanta

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  Ayase identified two production inspirations for the song's distinctive bass character. One was the strong low frequencies associated with American musician Ghostemane. The other was bass guitar played by Indonesia rapper Rich Brian during his live set at the 2022 Head in the Clouds Festival.

  Jazz-funk slap bass, "gritty" sub-bass, an orchestral and electronic chorus, and a "dark" trap metal-like melody all appear within a single track. Patrick St. Michel of The Japan Times described the overall sound as drawing from "Akihabara livehouses and Atlanta hip-hop." He added that it is "connected by a piano dash that has come to define Ayase's production."

  Music critic Hwang Sun-up, writing for Shūkan Bunshun, heard K-pop elements in the sound and structure. Hwang cited Blackpink's "How You Like That" as a parallel for the grand intro and Nmixx's "O.O" for the mixed structure. JX Soo of NME compared the overall effect to the "technicolor pop" of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Noriko Ashizawa from Spotify Japan wrote that the "Vocaloid-like irregular melody progression is not similar to any overseas song."

  Ikura's vocals alternate between what critics called a "sweet and clear" idol-like register and "deep sarcastic" snarls with "rapid-fire" trap beat-styled rapping. Akihabara-based B-boy group Real Akiba Boyz contributed uncredited background cheering shouts. Gospel-styled background vocals sung in English rounded out the recording.

  Suzie Suzuki, writing for Yahoo! News Japan, compared "Idol" to Kyoko Koizumi's 1985 single "Nantettatte Idol." She described the result as "too well done," reaching what she called "a metastructure of more idol song-like than a normal idol song."

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• 3. A Perfect Liar

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  Ai Hoshino's "invincible smile" is the opening image in the song's lyrics. From the vantage point of fans and media, she is a "perfect liar" and a "genius idol." She tells her fans she cannot love anyone, and she has stopped distinguishing between what is true and what is false.

  B-Komachi's other founding members occupy the song's second section, watching Ai from their positions as backup dancers. They resent being relegated to supporting roles for what the lyrics call the "absolute" center. They simultaneously cannot tolerate watching Ai show weakness, and they want her to always be perfect and stronger than anyone else.

  Ai herself narrates the final section. She is hiding the fact that she has twin children named Ruby and Aquamarine, and the lyrics compare her act of singing and dancing while concealing this to Mary, mother of Jesus. Outsiders see her as flawless; she describes herself as a "greedy idol" driven not by perfection but by the size of her desire for love. Her closing hope is that her lies will someday become true, and that she is not lying about loving her children.

  The lyrics draw on Oshi no Ko's first episode, which premiered theatrically on the 17th of March 2023. A companion short story published alongside the single later extended the same world from a different angle, one the song itself can only suggest.

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• 4. 45510

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  Aka Akasaka published "45510" via the Weekly Young Jump website on the 13th of April 2023, one day after the anime's televised premiere. The title is a code derived from a telephone keypad. Typing each founding member's surname in Japanese kana produces a digit: 4 for Takamine, 55 for Nino, 1 for Ai, and 0 for Watanabe.

  The narrator is an unnamed former B-Komachi founding member. Sixteen years after Ai's death, she discovers a livestream of Ai speaking to her fans, which brings back her old jealousy of the group's center. When the livestream ends and she cannot find more recordings, she logs into B-Komachi's old blog. The password is "45510." Inside, she finds Ai's unpublished posts, filled with negative feelings and a longing to return to the past.

  The former member deletes Ai's posts, unwilling to let anyone see the idol's weak side. Despite years of jealousy, she had also respected Ai as "a perfect and ultimate idol."

  The story appeared on the Weekly Young Jump website on April 13. It was later collected as a booklet insert in both the limited CD, released the 21st of June 2023, and the 7-inch vinyl, released July 26, with both formats also carrying the Japanese, English, anime edit, and instrumental versions of the song.

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• 5. 22 Weeks at Number One

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  "Idol" debuted atop the Oricon Streaming Chart with 10,328,178 on-demand streams in its first week. That made it Yoasobi's third streaming number-one on Oricon, following "Yoru ni Kakeru" and "Kaibutsu." The song then held that position for 22 consecutive weeks, the second most in Oricon history, behind Official Hige Dandism's "Pretender" at 34.

  On the Billboard Japan Hot 100, "Idol" debuted at number one in the week of the 19th of April 2023. It earned 29,327 digital sales, 8,868,810 streams, and 4,334,923 video views in its first week. The song held the top position for 21 consecutive weeks, a new chart record. "Subtitle" by Official Hige Dandism had previously set the consecutive-weeks mark at eight.

  Snow Man's "Dangerholic" displaced "Idol" from number one in the week of September 13. Four months later, the song returned to number one in the week of the 17th of January 2024, extending its total run to 22 weeks. Those 22 total weeks made it the longest-running number-one in the chart's history.

  "Idol" reached 100 million on-demand streams in Japan within five weeks of release. That broke the previous record of six weeks, shared by "Subtitle" and BTS's "Butter." Every milestone from 200 million to one billion streams followed, each faster than any song before it, completing the full run in 137 weeks. "Idol" was the first song in Oricon history to accumulate one billion streams.

  The RIAJ certified "Idol" diamond for streaming within 295 days of its release, the fastest in RIAJ history. The diamond threshold is 500 million streams. The song also received double platinum for digital sales, surpassing 500,000 units, as of April 2024.

  JASRAC reported "Idol" as Japan's highest royalty-earning song for both 2023 and 2024. While domestic records were accumulating, the song was approaching a global milestone that no Japanese-language song had previously claimed.

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• 6. A Global First

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  "Idol" entered the Billboard Global Excl. US at number 135 in the issue dated the 22nd of April 2023, within two days of tracking. The next week it surged 130 spots to number five. Two weeks after the single's release, Yoasobi's distributor The Orchard reported that "Idol" had been streamed and viewed over 100 million times worldwide.

  Following the English version's release on May 26, the song spent six of its first seven weeks on the chart in the top ten. It then rose to number one on the Global Excl. US, collecting 24,000 digital sales and 45.7 million streams in that week. No Japanese-language song had ever led that chart before. The song held the top position for three non-consecutive weeks.

  On the Billboard Global 200, "Idol" debuted at number 14 in the issue dated the 29th of April 2023. Nine weeks later it reached its peak of number seven, the highest position ever recorded for a Japanese act on that chart at the time. Lisa's "Homura" had held the previous record at number eight.

  The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry ranked "Idol" the nineteenth best-selling song globally in 2023. That ranking reflected 1.01 billion subscription stream equivalents across global platforms.

  By June 2023, data company Luminate counted 722.71 million streams of "Idol" worldwide across audio and video. "Idol" reached number one on the global charts of both Apple Music and YouTube Music. Apple Music ranked it the eighth most streamed song globally for 2023, the best-performing track from a Japanese act that year.

  On the 2023 year-end Billboard Global 200, "Idol" placed at number 42. On the year-end Global Excl. US, it placed nineteenth, the highest finish by a Japanese song in the chart's history at the time.

  Billboard Japan launched a new chart in September 2023 dedicated to tracking Japanese songs in over 200 territories outside Japan. "Idol" debuted at number one in that inaugural week and held the position for 12 non-consecutive weeks.

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• 7. New Year's Eve, 2023

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  NHK announced Yoasobi's participation in the 74th NHK Kōhaku Uta Gassen on the 13th of November 2023. The show is held on December 31 each year, with the 74th edition taking place at NHK Hall in Shibuya, Tokyo. It was the duo's third appearance on the special, having previously attended in 2020 and 2021 and sitting out 2022.

  Five days before broadcast, the program revealed that Yoasobi would perform "Idol," choreographed and staged by Sota Kawashima of Ganmi. The performance was the 42nd act of the evening, preceded by Fumiya Fujii's "True Love" and "Shiroi Kumo no Yō ni" with Hiroiki Ariyoshi.

  Alongside Yoasobi and their band members, the performance featured dance troupe Avantgardey and B-boy group Real Akiba Boyz. After the first verse, members of ten participating Japanese and Korean idol groups appeared in succession. They included Seventeen, Nogizaka46, NiziU, Be:First, NewJeans, JO1, Stray Kids, Sakurazaka46, Le Sserafim, and MiSaMo. Singer Ano and actress Kanna Hashimoto then appeared, reproducing a pose that fans had called "the final battle between angel and devil." The nickname came from photo comparisons of the two during their idol careers. Hashimoto was also the evening's host and a former member of idol group Rev. from DVL. The full cast performed together to close the segment.

  The overall program drew the lowest audience share since 1989, at 31.9 percent. The "Idol" segment was nonetheless described as the highlight of the evening and the performance that drew the most attention online. In the Kantō region, the "Idol" portion recorded a viewership rating of 34.2 percent, the third highest of the night.

  A partial upload to NHK Music's YouTube channel accumulated 11.28 million views before being made private, the most among any video on that channel. Some K-pop fans argued that their favorite groups had been reduced to backup performers. Others saw the presence of so many international acts on the NHK stage as evidence of K-pop's global reach.

  Writing for The Japan News, Yohei Kitagawa praised Yoasobi's "strong and unrivaled" presence on stage. He described the duo as having a "unifying force for all of the other stars on stage."

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• 8. Into the Culture

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  By December 2023, "Idol" had accumulated 7.9 billion views on TikTok. Fan-made choreography by dancer and singer Kotaro Ide spread across the platform as a dance challenge. A wotagei-styled variation of the dance also circulated, covered by Japanese and Korean idols among others.

  On Google, "Idol" was both the most-searched song and the third most hummed-to-search song in Japan during 2023.

  In late April 2023, a viral video began circulating online. It combined the Oshi no Ko opening sequence with the title sequence of Shin Getter Robo vs Neo Getter Robo. At the chorus, it switched from "Idol" to JAM Project's "Storm." Yoasobi's official account and the account linked to former JAM Project member Ichirou Mizuki both responded to the video. A direct result was "Storm" being officially released to streaming platforms on the 3rd of July 2023. The phrase "Kimi wa kanpeki de kyūkyoku no Gettā," drawn from the meme, won the Gold Award at the 2023 Internet Buzzword Award.

  Yukihiro Oka used "Idol" for a projection mapping displayed on the exterior of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building No. 1 in December 2024. The song also appears in Forza Horizon 6, a 2026 racing game set in a fictionalized Japan. It plays on the game's fictional radio station, Gacha City Radio.

  A TV Asahi television special surveyed 10,000 people and chose "Idol" as the best anime song of the Reiwa era. A second TV Asahi survey, polling 1,740 overseas anime fans, placed "Idol" second overall, behind Yoko Takahashi's "A Cruel Angel's Thesis."

  "Idol" won Best Animation Video and Song of the Year at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards Japan. At the 8th Crunchyroll Anime Awards, it won Best Anime Song. At the 38th Japan Gold Disc Award, it took Song of the Year in both the download and streaming categories.

  Despite those results, "Idol" was not nominated for the Grand Prize at the 65th Japan Record Awards in 2023. Ayase won Best Composition Award for writing it, and Yoasobi received the Special International Music Award. The outcome prompted media and fans to publicly question the award's nomination process.

  At the 2025 Music Awards Japan, "Idol" took Song of the Year and Top Global Hit from Japan, two years after its original release.

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